LIFE IN GERMANY

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 13801, 19 November 1942, Page 2

LIFE IN GERMANY

BECOMING ‘GRIMMER EVERY DAY

Nazi Grip on France

Morale of British Prisoners

Mr Joseph W. Grigg, Jnr. t who was interned in a concentration camp in Germany, writing in the “Daily Mail" says: “Life in Germany becomes grimmer and more cheerless as the war drags on. Hitler’s bombastic promises of victory have become desperate pleas to the German people to struggle for ‘victory at any price.’ ‘Struggle for existence’ has become the watchword of Nazi propaganda. “Yet the best qualified foreign observers who were in Germany up to a month ago are convinced that — barring unforeseen occurrences —the crack-up will not come next winter. At the earliest they believe it will come in the winter of 1943-44. The German Army is still a powerful and dangerous adversary. “Only when it begins to reel heavily under defeats on the battlefield is the whole structure of Hitler’s Third Reich likely to topple and collapse.” “I have been asked: Why should French industry consent to work for Germany? To answer that let me give you the story of one industrialist,” writes a young Frenchman who has just reached this country, in the Daily Telegraph. In Germany’s Grip

, “After the Germans entered Paris he was sought out by the appropriate authority, who made the following proposal: That he should work in collaboration with the Occupying Power, who would take 60 per cent, of the output, while he should be al liberty to dispose of the other 40 per cent, to his compatriots and remain director and proprietor of the plant. If he refused the whole output would be appropriated and German directors would supersede him. “The industrialist —he was in the metal industry—accepted the first proposal: he saw the logic of it—to be confirmed in his direction of the business, his workpeople saved from the odium of working for the Germans and 40 per cent, of their output safe for France’s use.

“Events were to prove falsity of his reasoning. Little by little the 60 per cent, became 70, 75 and 80 per cent., and finally 100 per cent, for the Germans and none for France. To-day he has relinquished his post. Moreover—and here is the tragic irony of his fate—he is in prison as a reprisal for cabotage in his works. \

That is the story of one among a thousand good Frenchmen who tried to save something for France, but have been betrayed by those with whom Petain sought an honourable armistice.

“How shall we forbid the workers to work for Germany? They, must live. You may suggest the weapon of the general strike. It is Impossible under a total occupation. If you tried to engineer a strike you would be sacked. Once out of a job you would be sent to work in Germany, or ,if you refused, your ration card would be confiscated.

“They have a system, these Germans, for dealing with labour troubles. The miners of the Nord having decided to strike because of inadequate wages, the Germans simply closed all the food shops. After three days the miners had to resume work. Their leaders were deported to Silesia.” British Prisoners

“I should say the highest morale in Germany to-day, apart from that of German soldiers who have not been too long in Russia, is that of your British prisoners of war,” writes Mr Paul Winterton, the Moscow correspondent of the News Chronicle.

"I have met a few British escaped prisoners in Sweden, and I have met Red Cross officials and others in Germany who have been allowed to visit prisoners camps. They say the prisoners’ morale is simply fantastic; they laugh at the tales the Germans tell them, and their one idea is to escape if they can. "On the whole, the prisoners are well treated, though, of course, the German idea of ‘discipline’ is often inhuman from your point of view. "I know of a British sergeant who was kept for nine months alone in a dark cell, from which he was never allowed to move except to stand at the open door ‘for fresh air’ for a quorter of an hour a day. This was for having ‘cheeked’ a German sergeant on parade, and then threatened (when the man struck him) to hit back in self-defence.

“But when a Red Cross official heard of this cell and complained about it, the mam was taken out at once—the higher authorities said they didn’t know it was being used

and it was not used again, though the sergeant was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment by court-mar-tial. "On the other hand, I know of a camp commandant who bought a wireles set out of his own pocket for his prisoners and lets them listen to the 8.8. C. programmes every day. "In a general way, too, your prisoners get better food than the German civilians, because they receive Red Cross parcels as well as their rations. "The camps for British soldiers are all in Eastern Germany now or in occupied Poland. Naval men are at Bremen, and R.A.F. men in a camp near Kassel.’'